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Monday, 28 June 2010

Boooo hooooo

I have an update on the continuing Virgin saga, but I can't face it right now, so just assume that things are going from bad to worse! Last night I was so upset by the whole thing I couldn't help but bleep and just wanted to sit in a ball and cry. How pathetic is that? Virgin you have driven me to the brink of insanity and I am about to lose it. I have never known a company like it. I don't even blame the workers, the faults are obviously intrinsic to the system and won't be solved any time soon.

Other than the Virgin saga, I'm not sure I have much news. We spent much of the weekend out in the garden since the weather was soooo beautiful. That left me a little behind with my designs, but I still managed to load a few posts from the comfort of my garden chair :)    I can't design outside because it means taking my not-very-portable laptop outside along with my graphics tablet and pen....it's all too much of a faff. Then there's the super-glossy (supposedly non-reflective) screen which reflects anything and everything.

Any other news? Well the diet is kind of steady at the moment - no gain and no loss, but it's been a rough few weeks and I'm actually grateful to have stayed the same considering what I've eaten. I've tried a new trick this week with the cooking and I'm hoping that helps. Instead of spending ALL Saturday morning and most of the afternoon cooking like I'd been doing recently, I've chopped all the meat, veggies and seasoning for each recipe and put it in the fridge in separate boxes. now all I need to do is put it in the slow cooker on the way out to work, and it's all done when I get home. Now, tell me that's not even EASIER than what I had been doing? This way the lazy cook can still eat a healthy, nutritious meal....woo hooo. The best thing is that the slow cooker doesn't make much heat, unlike cooking on the cooker or in the oven...perfect for the temperatures we've been having here lately.

Anyone else hate cooking? How do you deal with it?

Tuesday, 22 June 2010

Feelin hot hot hot

Andy & I are BIG lovers of hot and spicy food...probably me more than him. We're always on the look out for really hot chili sauces and things and today we found a pretty decent one. We got some Louisiana Pepper sauces in jalepeno and habanero flavours and we were impressed by the heat, but seriously could have gone hotter LOL. We've been watching that Man Versus Food program where he eats all the really hot food and it's been giving us some ideas....particularly for a trip to Charleston SC which was featured on the program. There's a place there that does really REALLY hot food and has this challenge too...I gotta go LOL.

So, this is it....Louisiana Pepper sauce....burning the mouths of unsuspecting people since 1920 ;o)
Really, really tasty with chicken :)

Monday, 21 June 2010

Can I just say....

I'm not looking forward to telephone conversation number 3 with Virgin this evening. That issue I wrote about here is still ongoing after me being told it would be sorted within 24 hours. I just don't think I can face it :(

I'm now changing my thoughts from "Laura from Virgin you SUCK" to "Virgin you SUCK". You know what, as much as I complained about Sky, at least their customer service was efficient and professional (even if the service wasn't). In 11 months and 3 days, I can switch back to Sky! Woo hoo!

Anyone else ever made a decision they regretted like this?

Sunday, 20 June 2010

A weekend off

I had a weekend off custom designs and had lots of fun with the family yesterday. We had a barbecue in the afternoon and then headed out to my uncle's 50th birthday party in the evening.We set off back home about 10.30pm because we were driving home and we live about 2 hours away from my folks. We got home just before midnight and can you believe it was just going dark! Gotta love summer evenings :)

Today I spent about 10 hours designing my new digital scrapbooking kit. It still needs about 10 more hours spending on it but I've been pleased with the progress so far.  Tomorrow I'll be working on some custom designs and hopefully will shift that queue bit.

Ok, I'd better head off to bed now....at work at the crack of dawn...here's a pic of me & mum taken at the party. Its taken with my phone - which takes pretty naff pictures.


Saturday, 19 June 2010

Day off...woo hoooooo!

Those of you who follow my design blog will know that I have been busy converting my old style backgrounds and headers into the new style templates. The work that has been involved has just been...well quite frankly....ridiculous! I'm wondering what I've started and have, at times, totally regret ever starting it, but I will continue. This will be a great addition to my blog and will make it sooooo much easier for people to use my templates. Just in case you're interested, this is what is involved in making that switch to the new new downloadable templates.
  • load them onto a test blog
  • format the blog
  • make the extra bits (like post dividers) that I didn't already have
  • load all those extra bits onto a test blog
  • copy all the code
  • insert it into a Google Doc
  • take screenshots
  • format/crop the screenshot
  • upload to Photobucket
  • actually writing the post
...and then repeat for the Stretch version....it's taking about 4-6 hours per template AT LEAST. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!

But today is my uncle's 50th birthday and I'm going to see my family and spend the day with them. We're not a very close (extended) family and I haven't seen some of them since my grandma's funeral 3 years ago. It will be nice to catch up. We'll be spending some time with my folks before we go to the party so I'm looking forward to that too.

I'm going to go enjoy my well earned day off now - talk later and have a nice day everyone.